Dear Fake Geek Girls: Please Go Away

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what it was like for me being a geeky girl growing up and what it’s like for geeky girls nowadays. It’s a totally different world. Now, a geek is synonymous with anyone who has an Internet connection. When I was growing up being a geek wasn’t something you wanted advertised but you felt pride in knowing that you were really good at something or were a subject matter expert on something obscure. I spent hours every night listening to Henry Rollins spoken word tapes when most people thought he was just in a band, I knew all the names of the Transformers characters and their backstories, I received all of my Girl Guides badges and I played every Sierra Online Quest game at least twice. I was not cool, I was a geek.

Back before computers, the term ‘geek’ was originally described as a freak that performed in circus acts and carnivals. The term morphed over time and in the 90′s was used interchangeably with ‘nerd’ to describe socially-inept computer programmers. Today the word is the exact opposite of its original meaning; a term once used to inflict social cruelty is now a term of endearment, everyone and their dog self-proclaims themselves as a geek in whatever passing interest they have. The definition of ‘geek’ is so broad now that it is meaningless.

I thought being called a geek meant you liked something so much that you were willing to forgo social outings and popularity. That still seems to be the case, but the once coveted term is now being used as a marketing gimmick, and those who truly deserve the label are lost in the noise..

Pretentious females who have labeled themselves as a “geek girl” figured out that guys will pay a lot of attention to them if they proclaim they are reading comics or playing video games. Celebrities are dressing up as geeks to reach a larger audience. Richard Branson labeled himself a geek for crying out loud.

The venn diagram made by Matthew Mason depicts geek as the intersection between intelligence and obsession.

From Great White Snark

As someone who is married to an obsessive deep-diver, those definitions ring true. My husband Sean Bonner is a coffee geek, an art geek, a meme geek, and a punk-rock geek. He is super passionate and obsessive about the things that he is interested in. He has been that way his entire life and it’s unreal watching him get hooked on something new and watching his knowledge about it grow each and every day non-stop. It’s also why he has such a strong following: people count on him to share his deep knowledge on their favorite subject-matter. He does all the heavy lifting and they get the CliffsNotes.

Patton Oswalt’s piece on Wired Wake Up, Geek Culture. Time To Die is a geek’s dream reference to everything that once was. Oswalt references the Japanese term ‘otaku,’ a subject my friend Mimi Ito researches quite extensively and even wrote a book about Fandom Unbound: Otaku Culture in a Connected World. Otaku refers to people with obsessive interests in pretty much anything. Oswalt suggests that the Internet has not only made it easy to become an expert or otaku in something instantly, but because it’s so easy, it’s creating ‘weak otakus.’

Maybe it’s just something that Generation X’ers lament about, as many of us old-timers believe that when it was harder to learn about something and you did it anyway, when no one else was building that computer in the basement but you persevered, that’s when your passions really shined through. That’s what being a geek is. Now if someone sticks a video game into their XBOX 360 console, they self-label themselves a ‘gamer.’

Oswalt believes that we need to over-saturate the geek culture to the point where it explodes and we are back to ground zero. I don’t think we need to go to such drastic measures; we just need to expose the posers for who they are and shine the light much more brightly on those that are the real deal.

Mimi’s 13 year old daughter, Luna, was featured on the popular culture blog boingboing about her ability to sew and how although her friends think it’s cool that she makes them gifts, they call her ‘grandma’ for taking classes on a Saturday. I’ve spoken to Luna about her sewing projects and even got some tips from her about how to make a Christmas stocking for my husband, so I know firsthand how talented she is. The thing that strikes me the most is how humble and casual she is about her skills. It made me think about a few online personalities who would have taken 10 pictures of themselves threading the needle and making their first stitch in order to get a bunch of likes on Instagram. Those same people would not be taking classes on a Saturday to improve their sewing skills.

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I very much agree with you. I also have a broad range of interests but not the bandwidth to be über all knowing about them. Still, I would consider myself a geek, not because I need to be labeled or am desperate to be in this group or that, it’s just because that’s who I am. This article presents a slippery slope, if we exclude people who aren’t as knowledgable as we on a subject, how will they ever know if they love that subject? Geek culture doesn’t have a maximum capacity, and we shouldn’t treat others like it does.

@John T That’s an unfortunate reality of history. I mean, how many people know about Ben Franklin but don’t know Nikola Tesla?

In my eyes there is no excuse for being cruel or hypocritical toward someone in this way, especially not from people who like to put on airs of superiority because of their own history of being bullied or put down.

My problem is it, is when they blatantly lie about their hobbies in order to appear a certain way. “Gamer Girls” who play almost no video games. Star Wars Geeks who don’t know what planet Chewbacca is from.

I agree that trying to tell someone “Oh, you aren’t what I Am! Only I can be it!” Is pretty much an asshole thing to do. But when someone invades how you define yourself, and completely ruins how people perceive you, what do you do?

Yes I play Dungeons and Dragons, and yes I love Video Games ans Star Wars. Yet somehow, these hobbies seem to become entwined with vocal enthusiasts of the very casual variety, often blemishing how others view me.

It might just be my experience, and not endemic of the entire situation. I care how people perceive me, even when I know I shouldn’t, and it just rubs me the wrong way when girls label themselves as geeks when they really don’t give a shit about the things they are supposedly geeks of.

@Shauna Field, I completely agree with you about cruelty and hypocrisy. My only point was that it’s easy to confuse someone’s standing on principle for putting on airs of superiority. In my example, nobody could accuse Jobs of not being a geek, and nobody could say that Ritchie is undeserving of geek attention.

@John DeCosta, I definitely agree that dishonesty is a good reason to get frustrated with people.

@John T @John DeCosta I’m completely with you that dishonesty is wrong, but this is not an issue of simply calling people out on dishonesty. This is a prevalent, persistent mindset in the geek community that is directed at girls exclusively, as if men are above or incapable of doing such a thing as pretending to be into something so someone will like them. Which we all know is not true.

I can understand wanting to protect your own identity and feeling bad when someone doubts you, but again I do not agree with the blatant justification of this hateful “fake geek girl” mentality.

because it does dimish people. If you werent ostracized, made fun of, belittled by people you have no buisess claiming to be a geek. Geeks banded together against the people who are now tyring to get the acclaim of geeks without actually having to earn it. Being a geek for the most part is being an elitist in your field. If you cant take the heat of geek culture get out it, you have no business dumbing down the field.